Thursday, 30 October 2014

Kisumu. A fleet of luxury speedboats that were rejected in Tanzania and dumped in Mwanza for seven years has become a tourist attraction in Kenya’s section of Lake Victoria, The Citizen can reveal today.

Lake Express II (Photo by Hans Kristoffersen)

The speedboat transport saga rocked the nation in 2004 when the government-through the then Minister for works-refused to allow the vessels to be transported by road to Mwanza. The owners had to chart an alternative route in neighbouring Kenya.

The speedboats finally arrived in Mwanza city in August 2005 - having journeyed by road all the way from Dar es Salaam to Mombasa and on to Kisumu. Once there, the speedboats were assembled and refurbished. Only then did they cruise to Mwanza city - ending months of political bickering among cabinet ministers in the Benjamin Mkapa administration.

Sunday, 26 October 2014

Some 320,000 men voluntered for circumcision by last month in three Lake Zone regions in a campaign to prevent HIV spread.

The IntraHealth International managing director, Dr Lucy Mphuru, said the campaign was conducted in Shinyanga, Simiyu and Mara.

Dr Mphuru said they targeted the regions after realising that there was extremely low male circumcision rates.

She said male circumcision was important in preventing HIV prevalence apart from other sexually transmitted diseases.

According to Dr Mphuru, in the past many people did not support the campaign, but nowadays many of them were being circumcised.

She said the ministry of Health and Social Welfare was involved in the project, which was funded by the US President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief by the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention.

Dr Mphuru said that the campaign had been witnessed by the Population Services International (PSI) ambassador who is also an American singer-songwriter, actress and fashion designer, Amanda Leigh “Mandy” Moore.

“The exercise has managed to reduce the prevalence of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases for males and females by 60 per cent. It is a continuing project and we hope to reach other six regions: Iringa, Tabora, Mbeya, Rukwa, Geita and Mwanza,” said Dr Mphuru.

Sunday, 19 October 2014

Dar es Salaam. Air Tanzania yesterday announced suspension of flights to four domestic destinations for six days as its aircraft goes for scheduled maintenance.

The airline is currently waiting for a leased CRJ-200 which is expected to jet into the country by next Tuesday to replace the bombardier aircraft which has been serving the domestic routes, according to a statement published yesterday.

MWANZA. MV Victoria that got technical faults while on its way from Bukoba to Mwanza last Friday night is safe to operate, the Surface and Marine Transport Regulatory Authority (Sumatra) has assured passengers.

The Lake Zone officer in charge for Sumatra, Mr Bahati Musiba, told The Citizen on Saturday that following the problem that caused the 54-year- old ship to delay its trip to Mwanza had thorough inspections done by Sumatra to make sure the ship was technically fit.

“On Friday [last week] night when the ship was leaving Bukoba Port the captain experienced some technical faults as its steering was not working and the radar was off. They made consultations with engineers and used emergency service that enabled them to arrive at Kemondo Bay.”

Thursday, 16 October 2014

As the war continued with Tanzania troops heavily bombing Amin’s forces, Julius Kambarage Nyerere received an explicit threat from Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, which shocked him.

The 24-hour threat was delivered in Dar es Salaam by Libya’s ambassador to Tanzania.

In a note delivered to Nyerere by the Libyan ambassador to Tanzania, Gaddafi demanded that Tanzanian troops be out of Uganda within 24 hours. If this was not done, Gaddafi said, Libya would enter the war on the side of Uganda.

The authors say Nyerere was somewhat taken aback, since he knew that Libya had already entered the war at Lukaya. Nyerere responded by going public with Gaddafi’s threat.

In a nationwide radio broadcast Nyerere disclosed that Gaddafi had warned that the war might spread into Tanzania. “The war is about to take on new dimensions,” Nyerere said, but assured Tanzanians that neither Libyan threats nor actions could change Tanzania’s view of Idi Amin.

Four days later a Libyan TU-22 supersonic bomber took off from Nakasongola air base in Uganda on a mission to bomb the Tanzanian town of Mwanza.

Mwanza. The Ministry of Health and Social Welfare has released the results of the samples sent to Nairobi to establish the cause of the controversial death of Bertha Boniphace (25) who was hospitalized at Geita District Hospital, Geita Region for what was highly rumoured in Geita town that she was suffering from Ebola fever.

The Medical Officer in-charge for Geita District Hospital Dr Adamu Sijaona, told The Citizen on Saturday yesterday that, the results from Nairobi showed that Bertha was not suffering from the Ebola virus, instead she was suffering from viral hemorrhagic fever (VHF).

Wednesday, 15 October 2014

MV Victoria, the biggest steamer that operates in the lake whose name it shares, is no longer the once majestic maritime transporter.

For relatively elderly people who saw the now nearly 53-year-old steamer when they were children and young adults, the cruiser approximates scrapyard material.

It is good news that the technical problem that arose in the steamer last Saturday night was detected not long after it had left Bukoba for the journey to Mwanza, and it was diverted to the nearby Kemondo Bay.

MWANZA. Ministry of Labour and Employment has vowed to take legal measures against recruitment agencies that have not complied with the ministry’s directive to officially register their companies.

The Labour and Employment minister, Ms Gaudencia Kabaka, said yesterday that all agencies were required to have been registered with the ministry as early as January of this year. However, she said that only 75 agencies had been registered to date while more than 90 agencies existed, noting that some were still operating illegally.

She made the remarks after meeting with management of SBC Company Ltd (Pepsi), Mwanza branch while deliberating on conflicts between casual labourers and Chasama Solutions Ltd, a recruitment agency, after the latter was accused of mistreating workers.

Tuesday, 14 October 2014

MWANZA.The government has ordered people engaging in agriculture and other productive activities along Mirongo River to immediately stop to rescue the environment from the current state of deterioration.

The order was issued by the State minister in the Vice President’s Office (Environment), Mr Binilith Mahenge, when he toured the area recently.

During the tour, the minister witnessed the poor state of the environment caused by economic activities, including farming, undertaken nearby the river.

Mr Mahenge said activities carried out by farmers in areas adjacent to the river were polluting the environment.

Sunday, 12 October 2014

Passengers aboard MV Victoria were panic stricken on Friday after the ship’s electricity system failed, resulting in the vessel to sail very slowly while travelling from Bukoba to Mwanza.

The journey that started at 21:00 hours from Bukoba to Kemondo Bay took an abnormally long time, of four hours instead of two hours.

Third class passengers started crowding for buoys located close to their sections but they were locked, creating fears of what may have transpired if the vessel had sunk. The life jackets in the vessel were reportedly locked and fewer than the number of passengers.

Editha Malima (31) en route to Arusha from Uganda told this newspaper that they knew nothing about the ship’s faulty condition.

“We remained in the ship until 8.00 am thinking we had reached Mwanza only to realize that we were still at Kemondo.

“They didn’t inform us that there were problems with the vessel. We’re just hearing its booming noise thinking we were travelling, while we were not,” she said.

Wednesday, 8 October 2014

A major dispensary in Mwanza Region is suffering a dire shortage of water so much that, families of patients admitted there are forced to provide their own water.

Dr. Sylivester Kajoro, who is in charge of the Igokelo dispensary in Misungwi District, admitted to this paper over the weekend that the shortage of water at the dispensary is jeopardising the health of patients there.
“We even ask relatives to bring in water to clean bed sheets for their patients,” he conceded.

Dr. Kajoro revealed that the dispensary has been using unsafe water fetched from nearby ponds which places patients and staff at risk of contracting communicable diseases.